He learned the harsh lesson a long time ago. There is no guarantee your expectations will merge with reality.

That was driven home for Corey Gaines during the three years he played basketball at UCLA. The numbers for those seasons, 1983 to 1986, make it clear what happened to his dreams. He averaged 4.3 points and 1.9 assists.

The economics major was on his way to the 9-to-5 work force.

Except he was willing to try something different. He transferred to Loyola Marymount University.

There, playing for Paul Westhead, a coach who believes the fast break is a Sunday stroll in the park, his speed and intelligence were harnessed and he averaged 17.4 points and 8.7 assists.

This was another lesson for the St. Bernard High graduate. Good things can happen to those who do not give up.

Little did he know it, but his education was just beginning. It’s an education that continues for him to this day as coach of the WNBA’s Phoenix Mercury.

And how is it, after a lifetime of playing with and coaching men, coaching women?

“I went in with a blank,” he said with a grin Sunday at Staples Center before the Mercury played the Sparks. “I had an open mind.”

The job presented a new opportunity to learn from his mentor, Westhead.

Previously, Gaines had become, as we say, a well-traveled basketball player, logging 80 games over five seasons in the NBA as well as playing overseas.

All the while, he remained in touch with Westhead, taking advantage of his old coach’s experience in the NBA to find out things he needed to know, such as where his style would fit in and about personalities of coaches.

Then it came time for a new conversation.

“I was 39, playing in Israel,” Gaines said. “I was still having fun. Coach said, `You can’t play forever. You have to stop sometime.”‘

Westhead, as always is the case, had something in mind. He was going to coach the Long Beach Jam in the ABA. Gaines could be his starting point guard, play very limited minutes, and be an assistant coach.

The limited minutes turned out to be with Westhead, who received an offer he could not turn down to be an assistant in the NBA in Orlando just as the ABA season started.

Gaines did not complain because he still received a crash course in Coaching 101 during the run-up to the season. He remained as assistant to Earl Cureton and he coached the team the following season.

Westhead had another offer two years ago.

“We met in a coffee shop in Manhattan Beach,” Gaines said. “He told me he was going to coach Phoenix in the WNBA and asked if I would be interested in joining him. I told him, `If you’re going, I’m going, Coach.”‘

This would be another set of lessons. Neither of them had been involved with women in basketball.

“Coach said, `Let’s coach them as players,”‘ Gaines said.

They coached them as Westhead players, which means the 24-second clock is like a calendar because they aim to get the ball up the court and in the air in five to six seconds.

There’s more to this than turning the court into a drag strip, as Gaines knows going back to his year as point guard at LMU. Westhead’s high tempo game involves the mental toughness to get in the best shape of your life and then get in even better shape. It requires a point guard who can make good decisions.

And?

“We found out in the women’s game they have to be happy,” Gaines said. “They have to be one as a unit.

“Men might not like one another. They might not talk to one another away from the court. They can be that way and still win a championship.”

Or multiple championships. Think Kobe Bryant and Shaquille O’Neal.

“It’s not that way with women,” Gaines said. “They have to have great chemistry.”

Westhead and Gaines learned. They learned in a hurry.

Last season, their second together in Phoenix, the Mercury won the WNBA championship.

Westhead then shuffled off to Seattle to return to the NBA as an assistant for his good friend P.J. Carlesimo. Ann Meyers Drysdale, the former UCLA All-American who is the Phoenix general manager, turned the team over to Gaines.

“He’s easygoing,” Drysdale said. “The players have fun playing for him. He laughs and jokes with them. He has great communications skills.”

Drysdale has received positive feedback from the players about Gaines.

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